You might be wondering where to start with power washing your Northern Virginia home. It can be difficult to decide whether power washing your home is something you should do for yourself or whether you should hire a professional, and whether power washing is really worth it all. While seemingly simple, there’s plenty to know about power washing besides point-and-shoot.
When not handled properly, power washing and power washing equipment can be very dangerous to the homeowner and the home itself, possibly injuring people and damaging property. However, when handled by someone who knows what they’re doing, power washing can be a great tool to keep your home looking great, keep down other maintenance costs, and increase property values. When you use Ultimate Powerwash in Northern Virginia, you’re investing in all the benefits of power washing and ensuring the safety of you and your home throughout the power washing process. First, let’s take a deeper look at the risks of using an amateur power washing service or power washing your own home
Using a Professional to Keep Power Washing Safe
As alluded to previously, it’s easy to put yourself, others, and your home at risk when you improperly use a power washing machine. Water blasts out of the pressure washing machine at such a high rate that it can easily tear through skin and erode certain hard services when held too close. While your first priorities should always be spraying away from other people and keeping a safe distance from surfaces, there are various aspects to keep in mind in order to keep you and your home safe.
Keeping Power Washing Safe for the Home
When it comes to your home, power washing can do a ton of good, but entrusted to the wrong person it could actually end up costing you in repair costs and property values. Power washers are powerful enough to destroy certain lawn and garden features as well as components of your home’s exterior. Here are just a few things that can go wrong with your home’s exterior if power washing isn’t handled properly.
- Destruction of lawn and garden features — Essentially no feature of your lawn and garden can stand up to the power of certain pressure washers, even at a relatively low psi. When proper precautions aren’t taken, flowers, shrubs, garden beds, light features, and grass are all potential victims of a pressure washer.
- Destruction of electrical components — Electrical components are always at risk with such a high volume of water being dispersed at once. A spray in the wrong direction could cause costly repairs and replacements.
- Infiltrating surfaces — When power washing, it can be tempting to get close to the features being cleaned. The removal of dirt and grime can seem so satisfying and getting closer can increase the effects of pressure. However, professionals know that getting too close to wood, siding, concrete, and other solid features can slowly wear away their surfaces and increase the speed of material wear. Wood surfaces can be exposed by power washing away protective coatings, siding can be penetrated to the point where insulation and wiring is exposed to moisture, and even concrete sealing can be penetrated by power washing!
Power Washing Safety for the Homeowner
Again, power washing seems simple, but as with so many other things, when not handled properly there can be serious short and long term consequences. The damages to your home that a power washer could potentially cause are costly, but the injuries they could cause to humans could cost much more. Here are a few of the worst-case scenarios:
- Lacerations lead to infections — With a brief pass from a power washer, you may only receive a small cut. However, the cut itself isn’t the biggest risk. The chemicals in a pressure washer can penetrate the skin and lead to bacterial infections, some of them are even severe enough to warrant surgery.
- Electrocution — Using a power washer inherently means combining the power of water and electricity, a dangerous duo. For the most part, the risk of electrocution should be low. A grounded power source should be used as a first precaution, but an improperly cared-for power washing machine could be the biggest risk. Cracks in electrical cords could expose you to the risk of electrocution or electrical fires. For this reason, we wouldn’t recommend renting a power washer for home use.
- Being sued by an amateur — When employing someone on your property, you can become responsible for their safety if they are not insured. With the use of a service such as Ultimate Powerwash, you’re ensuring that any accidents on the job will be covered by our insurance. You’ll never run the risk of being taken advantage of by an ill-equipped power washing service.
- Damage to soft tissue — While cuts may be the most common concern of an improperly handled power washer, the real risk exists for soft tissue and sensory organs. Taking a stream of water to the ears or eyes from a pressure washer could potentially cause a loss of vision or hearing.
Keep Power Washing Safe With Ultimate Powerwash
When you feel that your home, deck, fence, or other exterior features need a good cleaning, we hope you’ll leave it to the professionals. Using an insured, professional power washing service is key to making sure that you and your home stay safe and that you get the property value boosting service you signed up for. Call Ultimate Power Wash the next time you need a power wash in Northern Virginia. We’re based out of Stafford and serve all areas from Fredericksburg to Alexandria.
